Glucagon-like peptide-2 (GLP-2) is a 33 amino acid peptide, which is expressed in a tissue determined fashion from the pleiotrophic glucagon gene and is highly related in terms of amino acid sequence to glucagon and Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1). Mammalian forms of GLP-2 are highly conserved: for example, the human and degu (a south American rodent) forms differ by one and three amino acids respectively from rat GLP-2. Recently it was demonstrated that GLP-2 is an intestinotrophic peptide hormone; when given exogenously, GLP-2 can produce a marked increase in the proliferation of small intestinal epithelium of the test mice (Drucker et al, (1996) PNAS, 93:7911-7961). More recently, GLP-2 has been shown to increase D-Glucose maximal transport rate across the intestinal basolateral membrane (Cheeseman and Tseng: American Journal of Physiology (1996) 271:G477-G482).
To accelerate research into gastrointestinal biology and development of drugs useful in the treatment of various medical conditions including gastrointestinal disorders, it would be useful to provide the receptor through which the effects of GLP-2 are mediated.